Enbridge CEO leaves door open for Northern Gateway pipeline

We need to have a clear strategy for competitiveness in Canadian energy: Enbridge CEO

VIDEO SIGN OUT

The CEO of Enbridge Inc. isn’t closing the door on the ill-fated Northern Gateway pipeline project, which was rejected in 2016 by the Trudeau government.

Al Monaco’s comments come after Alberta’s newly-elected premier, Jason Kenney, discussed the possibility of reviving Enbridge’s proposed project during his campaign. Monaco told BNN Bloomberg Wednesday that the pipeline would need a number of guarantees for the company to go down that path again.

“We’d have to see a number of things happen before [construction] came about,” Monaco told Tara Weber in an interview.

Enbridge’s Northern Gateway pipeline was first proposed in 2010 and was supposed to connect Alberta’s oil sands to a port in Kitimat, B.C. In November 2016, the Liberals revoked approvals that had let the pipeline project proceed as far as it had.

“We went through a very extensive process, a process that basically concluded by saying this would be a world-class project to tidewater,” Monaco said.

“We’re obviously very sensitive to expending a whole lot of capital through a regulatory process without ensuring – number one – we have commercial support, but good certainty that once you go through the regulatory process, that you can actually execute the project.”

“We need to have a strategy here – a strategy that reconciles the economic, social and environmental issues,” Monaco said.

“If we want to set our path forward on capitalizing on the great advantages that we have, then we have to establish that strategy – what we want to do as a nation. Then companies like ours and the industry upstream of us can invest with confidence.”